


all comes down

by allthelight



Category: His Dark Materials (TV), His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Pre-Canon, very vague mentions of suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:42:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23319310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allthelight/pseuds/allthelight
Summary: "There’s a figure on the edge of the balcony above them, hazy in white, with dark curls loose around her face. For a moment he thinkswho on Earth… and then his heart stops and jumps into his mouth because it’sher."He doesn't know what fear is until the night she falls. Asriel goes to see Marisa after the trial ends.
Relationships: Lord Asriel/Marisa Coulter
Comments: 4
Kudos: 70





	all comes down

**Author's Note:**

> I have wanted to write this for aggesss and being in forced isolation means I have plenty of time so at least there's a positive. I hope you enjoy it and it's not too ooc. This is a 'what if?' moment and tensions were running high and you know. This is maybe more TV them than book them? You can decide!
> 
> All lyrics and title from Kodaline. I hope you enjoy!

> _I see in my soul that I know you were lying to me_  
>  _I lose control_  
>  _Oh I didn't know_

He doesn’t know what fear is until the night she falls.

It’s late, terribly so. The trial finished hours ago and Lord Asriel is now a free man again. A free man with no land or money, no influence or child. Some of these things he will reclaim, he has no doubt, but some of these are lost forever to him, of that he is painfully aware.

He has been walking for hours, Stelmaria at his side. Mostly he has stuck to shadows, so that the whole of the city doesn’t comment on him. The trial has been big news, splashed unpleasantly across every major newspaper, each of them telling varying versions of the same untrue story. He himself has refused to comment on the full details. Some things, he thinks, should be left for them.

Even now he supposes he cannot regret what has happened, for he knows he would make the same choice again if faced with that red-faced, repulsive man who called himself Marisa’s husband. An awful man, and everybody thought so, and Asriel knows that nobody is truly sorry he’s gone. If a trial was a popularity contest then he would be back in his estate right now, quite comfortable in his sitting room, looking over packing lists for upcoming expeditions.

Well, perhaps not. That would only come into being without accounting for a dark-haired woman with a wicked smile and a poisonous tongue. The people may like Asriel more, with his good looks and charming ways, but they would always side with whomever Marisa chose. They could be charmed by her, made drunk by her, and he supposes that he himself is just as susceptible as every other fool. Once he thought he was different, but it’s clear now that he wasn’t, at least not to her.

She is the last person he could ever want to see, which is why when the sky grows dark and the streetlamps come on, he is surprised to find that he is in the vicinity of her house. The townhouse that Edward preferred to the country mansion is in the next street over, and Asriel doesn’t really know how or why but his feet have carried him here of their own accord. And when he realises it, he finds that he keeps on walking.

“This is a bad idea,” Stelmaria says softly. She has remained silent throughout most of their walk, quietly contemplating in her own way what this new life means for them. Anything said before now wouldn’t have been received well, a mutual agreement brokered the moment they set off walking. It has been hard to remain inconspicuous, but the silence had helped. Now it is dark and the streets are empty. There is no need for her to remain so anymore.

He ignores her. She’s right, of course she is but he finds that he couldn’t stop his feet moving even if he wanted to. There’s something pulling him, tugging him along to that place that he swore he would never go again.

“We shouldn’t, Asriel. There will be nothing but trouble.”

It might just be an imagining, or is she slightly desperate? He ignores her still.

“She might not even be there. We should not go.”

“I can’t explain it,” he tells her, voice sharp. “I can’t.”

She looks at him intently as they walk, and instead of venturing in front as she often does, she remains very close to his leg – he can feel her warmth through the thin material of his trousers. He wants to say no, that he doesn’t need this coddling, but the reality is that he’s tired, and he’s sad, and he misses the woman whom he once thought he loved, the woman who betrayed him completely without even blinking.

They come to a stop in front of her front door. The last time Asriel was here he held a baby girl in his arms and was being shoved out into the night. He wonders what’s happened to Lyra now, where she is, but the thought barely has any time to develop because soon Stelmaria is butting her head against his leg and gesturing upwards and saying, “Ariel, _look!”_

There’s a figure on the edge of the balcony above them, hazy in white, with dark curls loose around her face. For a moment he thinks w _ho on Earth…_ and then his heart stops and jumps into his mouth because it’s _her._

Fright has him paralysed and Stelmaria pushes him forward insistently. It is enough to spring him into action and he pushes open the heavy oak door (it is not locked and he will wonder about it later) and sprints inside, taking the stairs to her bedroom two at a time.

“What the hell is she doing?” He grunts, as Stelmaria leaps gracefully beside him. “That stupid woman.”

Of course, earlier he would have said he didn’t care if she died, that he couldn’t care less, but that’s not the truth, and he curses himself for thinking of it now. He has lost so much today, and as much as he wishes to hate her with every fibre of his being, he could not cope if he lost her, too.

He pushes open her bedroom door gently, and tip-toes across the plush carpet to the doors that lead onto her balcony. His steps are quick and purposeful, but he treads ever so gently for fear of spooking her and causing her to lose her balance.

Marisa doesn’t hear him enter, and he wonders how such an astute woman, a person who is keenly aware of everything around her, could fail to notice. There’s a glass in her hand, the mahogany coloured liquid sloshes around but does not spill.

“Marisa,” he says, very lowly. “What the _hell_ are you doing?”

Her back was to him, her white nightgown fluttering in the breeze, but now she turns to face him (far too quickly for his liking) and her face lights up so brilliantly that Asriel loses himself for a second.

“Asriel!” She exclaims, throwing her hands up in the air. “Look who it is! They let you out after all, did they?”

He wrinkles his nose in distaste, an unconscious action that he regrets immediately. “Are you drunk?”

“Do you know,” she says, smiling like a child that’s about to let him on a secret, “I do believe I might be.”

It explains nothing at all and he doesn’t know why he asked. Marisa drunk is one thing, something he’s familiar with. Marisa on a balcony with a nightgown, looking very much like an angel about to fall from the Kingdom of Heaven is quite another, and he wonders why.

“What are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing?”

“I honestly do not know.”

“That’s the first time I have ever heard you say that,” she muses, looking down into her glass. “That you don’t know something. You’re the great Lord Asriel Belacqua, aren’t you? You always have all the answers. You always have everything.”

He still hasn’t ventured further onto the balcony, fear keeping him rooted where he is. Anybody else and he would be galvanised into action, would have plucked them down or let them fall without a care as to either outcome. It’s not quite so with her. It’s not quite as easy. It never has been.

But he is still angry, and he still doesn’t know why he’s here. Something in her comment enrages him, and before he can help himself, he bites out, “Not anymore. Not after the stunt you pulled.”

Marisa laughs – honest to goodness laughs – and it’s a clear, musical laugh that sounds as though she’s really happy.

“Did I do alright? One can never be too sure with these things, of course. It can be hard to get a balance. One must make sure to have just the right number of tears, otherwise the whole thing just becomes a touch too melodramatic and not at all believable.” Her eyes are shining, gleaming stones in the utter blackness of the night. “I’m happy it worked.”

“And happy people just walk around on a ledge, do they?” But to speak lightly is an effort, a herculean one, for the panic he feels has begun to work its way into his chest, into his voice. “Get down, Marisa. Stop being ridiculous.”

She laughs again, throwing her head back so violently he fears she’ll fall over the edge with the force of it. Once she stops, she turns to him and smiles pityingly. “I do believe I’m past being told what to do by you.”

He cautiously steps forward. Stelmaria is at his side, murmurs _be careful_ very quietly. The monkey sits with his back to the wall as still as a statue, no sign of turmoil. Asriel murmurs, “I have never told you what to do. Nobody would ever dare.”

“Oh, but they did, didn’t they? All my life I’ve been told what to do. Sit up straight, wear your hair like this. Don’t let them know how smart you are for ladies should never be smart.” The smile drops from her face. “Ladies are things to be fawned and petted over. They aren’t to have minds of their own. They are for marriage, to strengthen alliances, and nothing else.”

“I have never treated you like that. Don’t start pretending now.”

He has never believed that it’s his sex that makes him superior to others, and especially not to her. Marisa is something beyond everyone he has ever met. Even now, even after everything, he cannot deny her cunning, her ambition.

“No, you didn’t. You never did. But you got me pregnant. That’s what the ultimate point of a woman is, is it not? Isn’t that what they say? You linked me to you forever, no matter how much we try to pretend otherwise.”

“You’re the only one that pretended,” he says, but it’s lost to the night and he’s rather glad for it. “That doesn’t explain why you’re out here on a night such as this.”

“I’ve lost everything.” Her eyes glimmer with unshed tears. Alcohol has a truth-telling effect on her, and he wishes he didn’t know that now. Her tears are unsettling, as rare as stardust.

“No, you haven’t.” He has imagined this conversation many times, and in each scenario, he imaged he would be angrier, his temper having gotten the better of him. He imagined pressing his fingers into the soft flesh of her throat and he imagined making her hurt the way her desertion hurt him. He did not imagine that he would be advocating for her, saying whatever he could to make her step away from the ledge.

“Haven’t I?” She shakes her head as if to tell him that he knows nothing. “My husband, my reputation… everything I have worked for years to build all gone, just like that. The whole of Brytain knows what we did.”

“Who cares about the whole of Brytain, Marisa? You are better than this, or at least I thought you were. Come down from there this instant.”

To see her so unbalanced is unsettling, and Asriel, he who can command men with the lightest word and lead expeditions across dangerous glaciers, feels utterly at a loss and once upon a time he felt his strongest when he was with her.

“It’s so _easy_ for you. It always has been. Even now. You’ve walked away without a scratch.”

She seems so calm. She stands on a ledge on a breezy night, nightgown and hair billowing around her, tears in her eyes, and yet there is no erratic feeling, no manic actions. By its very nature what she’s doing is insane, and yet it doesn’t seem so. It feels like they would have always ended up here, no matter what.

“ _Don’t_ , Asriel,” Stelmaria murmurs, looking to the monkey who just stares right back, his black eyes not even blinking. “Don’t get drawn in. Get her down.”

“I’ve lost everything,” he tells her, voice calm. It’s the best he can do. “My lands and money and influence. Everything that allowed me to do what I loved is gone. You are not the only one who suffered. You are not the only one who has reason to be standing up here tonight.”

It’s been only hours since the trial has ended and already his house and assets have been seized. His staff dismissed. Lyra is… Well, he’s not entirely sure as of yet. In the care of the state he imagines, something he won’t allow for long. But that it not something for tonight.

“We are not the same,” Maria bites out, and she sways a little on the ledge. Asriel, without thinking, darts forward, but she regains her balance, and he sees how white her toes are in the effort to hold on. Bloody stupid, stubborn, insufferable woman. He should turn around and leave. “Once I thought we were, you and I.”

“No, we aren’t. I would never have done to you what you did to me.”

He says it quietly, but this time it’s loud enough for her to hear. For a moment she looks so crestfallen that he cannot bear it, but just as quickly as it came it’s gone, and her faces goes stony and hard. Once he was the person who took that look away from her, who brought her walls down, and the loss of that privilege stings oddly more than anything else.

“How sure you are, darling.” Her smile is feral, all teeth no joy. She looks like her monkey in this moment. “How sure you are of what you might have done. You have no idea.”

“I would never have condoned a man that was about to kill a child. _Our_ child, no less.”

“Everything always comes back to the baby, haven’t you noticed? This whole mess…”

“Spare me the blame game, Marisa. I already know you have no love lost for Lyra. You don’t need to prove it to me.”

“You have no _idea-_ ”

He cuts her off, not wanting to discuss the baby anymore. “I’m not here to argue with you-”

“Oh, but you used to love an argument, Asriel. Have times really changed that much?” He doesn’t answer and she fixes him with a look. “Why are you here?” He doesn’t answer again, can’t, for he doesn’t have one. “You should leave.”

“Come down, Marisa.”

“No. I shan’t.”

“You’re stronger than this, or you used to be. You aren’t the type to be pulled down by what those fools with the shrivelled brains think. They do not matter. Only you do.”

“You once made me feel like that,” she admits, downing the rest of her drink. “You once made me feel like we could tear this universe apart and put it back together exactly how we saw fit.” She stares into her empty glass as though it confuses her, and then then she puts her hand out over the edge, letting it fall from unresisting fingertips. The smash of it on the pavement below only highlights how terse the silence between them is. “It is all done with now.”

She turns away from him and looks out over London. The bright city lights are positively dizzying from up here and Asriel and Stelmaria inch ever closer. The monkey watches them from against the wall and does nothing at all. Its stillness is unnerving in the extreme.

“I’ve already fallen once,” she says, and the wind begins to whip around them. “What does it matter if I fall again?”

She teeters, the wind making her intoxicated form sway dangerously forward. Asriel darts forward. His arms go around her waist and yank backwards, uncaring of how rough it may be, only thinking of getting them both away from the ledge as fast as possible. They land in an ungraceful heap on the stone.

“Let me go,” Marisa hisses, but Stelmaria is in front of her, eyes unblinking, letting her know that it will not be happening.

“I don’t think so,” Asriel murmurs in her ear.

“You can’t do this to me,” she says through gritted teeth, and feebly struggles to get out of his embrace.

He only holds tighter. “Stop it.” His voice is a plea and he is not ashamed of it. “You have to stop it now.”

She stops struggling and goes entirely limp in his arms instead. He gets up off the ground, keeping one hand on Marisa at all times. Stelmaria has moved over to the monkey, who looks at her as if he doesn’t quite recognise her. Asriel doesn’t look long. Instead he puts one arm under Marisa’s knees and the other under her arms and lifts her, carrying her to bed the way he once did when they were lovers, and indeed the way he had once considered he might do on their wedding day.

He lays her down gently, and she goes entirely without fight. Sighing, he sits down next to her, feeling so weary. This day has stretched out so long and now he just wants to go to the one property he does still own, and lay down there and fall into oblivion.

In a moment of madness that he will later put down to exhaustion, he cups his hand gently around her cheek. In her drunken state, for he knows she never would now do so otherwise, she leans into it.

“Why did you do it?”

There are still tears in her eyes as she looks up at him. “I wanted to see if anyone would care… I wanted to see if… I would care.”

“Please tell me you didn’t, Marisa,” he breathes. “Please tell me you didn’t almost kill yourself to make me feel sorry.”

“And would you?” When he doesn’t answer she shakes her head slightly. “You do not feature that much in my life anymore. Do not worry.”

But they both know they are dancing dangerously close to the edges of the truth.

“Why did you stop me? You could have pushed me over. It might have solved your problems.”

It would have solved nothing. He is not a murderer. Everything he does has good reason and he sees no reason in petty revenge. Besides, he loves her, even if he would never dare tell her so.

“Do not worry,” he tells her, retracting his hand. “Next time I shall let you fall.”

A small gleam comes into her eye then, a flicker of the Marisa he knows. “You are being kind tonight. It is so unusual for you. Why?”

“You’re drunk,” he tells her, standing up. “You won’t remember this tomorrow.”

“No, I don’t suppose I will.” She begins to drift, eyelids fluttering shut. She murmurs, “It’s better that way, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” he agrees, watching as her breathing slows and she settles into the oblivion he craves. “It’s better this way.”

Then he tucks her into bed the way, in years to come, he will tuck in their daughter, clumsily but with feeling. He will stand back and marvel at their similarities before sighing gently, wondering at what might have happened and what could never be. And he will steal away then the way he does now, quietly and without warning, blending in at once with the night.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Please feel free to leave kudos/comments. Please feel free not to. Either way, I hope you're having a lovely day and staying safe. Always be kind <3


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